


Mad World

by TeaCub90



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Affection, Anxiety Attacks, Gen, Genderswap, Hurt/Comfort, Other, PTSD Sherlock, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Kissing, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Watson, fem-john
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:34:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23327836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaCub90/pseuds/TeaCub90
Summary: It’s funny, Jon considers mildly, in the way that it’s not actually funny at all, the different things that can affect Sherlock Holmes.Sherlock has an anxiety attack; his Watson helps out.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson
Comments: 3
Kudos: 51





	Mad World

**Author's Note:**

> So, fun fact: this was actually inspired a month or so ago, when the family I live with had a massive argument among themselves which scared the living daylights out of a highly-anxious me. In self-isolation right now, and recovering from an anxiety episode, I bring you this.

* * *

It’s funny, Jon considers mildly, in the way that it’s not actually funny at all, the different things that can affect Sherlock Holmes.

Example: he can handle faking his death and disappearing for two years and then coming back with a massive smile on his face to hide the pain of the sheer torture he endured while gone (and Jon knows, she _knows,_ he won’t say everything, won’t talk about it in its entirety, but she _knows)_ and claim he’s fine, _I’m fine, Joanna, it’s all fine, see me using your full name just to make a point and get you off my back, now stop asking me these foolish questions and let’s focus on the present and solve some nice gruesome murders._

But the moment Mrs Turner’s married ones start shouting at each other – and shouting loud, the _mother_ of all rows – right outside their building just as they’re leaving to find a cab? Well, in a nutshell, everything just immediately goes to Hell and Jon finds herself struggling to keep Sherlock upright, hands on his forearms as he trembles into her, shushing him, softly, _softly,_ keeping him close, keeping note of his eyes, as wide as broken windows, his stiff, startled body-language. Poor sod.

‘It’s okay,’ she assures him, over and over, running her hands up and down his suddenly shaking arms, holding him in place; the one advantage of this is that it makes the married ones shut up and stare. ‘Sherlock, mate, it’s okay, it’s okay, stay with me, breathe with me. It’s alright. One big inhale, one big inhale for me, Sherlock.’ He does as he’s told on the second instance, takes in a shaky breath, lets it out.

‘That’s it,’ she praises, ‘Now, try again for me…one _big_ inhale, that’s it…Come with me, come on. Go inside,’ she turns to snap at Josh, one half of the married couple, who looks worried and repentant, is walking forwards to offer help, waves him away, one hand on Sherlock, one hand shielding. ‘Just – just go away. And shut up,’ she snarls, recognising the hypocrisy of it, of leading the man shoots the walls back into safety and slamming the door on the world.

She lets him lean on her as she helps him back up the stairs, sits him down on his chair in the living-room; opens the window onto a now mercifully-silent street that indicates that Josh and his husband did as they were told; fetches some water that she puts by the chair.

‘Alright?’ she checks, although the evidence clearly suggests otherwise; he’s shivering like the proverbial leaf, his gaze fixed at some point past her – half-Baskerville all over again and half-just-been-shot. Jon kneels down in front of him, murmurs quietly.

‘Remember your breathing,’ she instructs, ‘put one hand over your heart, if it helps. Yeah, that’s it,’ she praises as Sherlock does exactly as he’s told, looking like a comedic version of the American soldier. ‘Yeah, I knew you had one. Now, inhale…one, two, three…exhale…one, two, three…’ They do this for three counts and Sherlock nods and listens and _breathes,_ so beautifully, just for her. Once upon a time, having him follow her instructions to the letter would have been a thrill – but not now. Not today.

‘Okay, you’re doing well,’ Jon praises. ‘Can I touch you, or do you need…?’

Sherlock nods, hand floundering; she lays the tips of her fingers on the very tips of his, collapsed in his knee, nodding to him, soothing him. She wants to give him space but then he’s leaning forwards into her, which is encouraging on some level and she reaches up, strokes his hair softly, a few light touches.

‘That isn’t your fault,’ she tells him, gently challenging the crux of the issue; that responsibility thing that Sherlock Holmes has had going on for a long time now; hanging around, rubbing off on him somehow. Whether it’s because he met her _(don’t flatter yourself,_ she thinks, furious) or because when he cares, he cares _deeply,_ or because the people who got to him, captured him, hurt him while he was away were just a bunch of psychotic twats – it’s hard to say.

Or maybe it’s just the whole world – including her before, when things haven’t gone her way – blames him for being him. She remembers the state of her and Marcus’s slowly-disintegrating marriage; those little jibes and bickers and outright lies; Sherlock standing by the door to their cosy suburban home, watching in confusion at the very real prospect of his friends fighting, like a frightened child watching their scrapping parents.

Well. Jon can’t be having that, frankly.

‘They’re just having an argument, they’ll calm down soon. It happens all the time; Harry and Carl used to argue a lot, but then you already knew that,’ she sighs again, plagued with not-so-pleasant memories of her brother’s own failing marriage; again, a common trait she’s only recently allowed herself to admit. ‘The last time I came back on leave, before I was shot, I – they had me over to dinner and started fighting over the spinach. Creamed spinach and pork Dijon. They didn’t even cook it; it came from a posh ready-meal’s store. _That_ made me feel very loved,’ she adds, with more than a trace of irony.

Sherlock’s eyes flit to her; he’s blinking, uncertain, like a computer booting back up.

‘I was like this,’ she adds, admits it aloud for the first time. ‘Carl apologised, but not Harry. Nope, never my brother.’

She huffs sadly; Harry never apologises, not for anything and perhaps that’s a trait the Watson siblings share, more than she’d like to admit. Shifting, she squeezes the tips of Sherlock’s fingers again; the trembling is abating; his hand has dropped from his chest. He’s _listening_ , at any rate and she wraps a hand lightly around the back of his head, strokes his crown, the nape of his neck.

‘You’re okay,’ she comforts. ‘You’re okay. You’re safe and you’re at Baker Street, you’re with me. You’re okay.’

Sherlock nods, blinks, rapidly, several times. His eyes are glinting and he squeezes them shut, wipes at them frantically, clearly furious with himself. Jon hushes him, runs the back of her knuckles down his cheek.

‘Hey, now, don’t do that. Don’t worry,’ she finds a smile for him, ‘do what you need to, okay?’ She tends his hair, because he likes that, as it turns out; runs her fingers through it in a light comb. Wonders how many times he cut it while he was away; if he had to shave it all off, regrow it. How hard he’s tried to try to regrow into _himself_ since he came back.

‘I,’ Sherlock manages and Jon drops her hand, waits. ‘I…w-would you…?’

‘Mm, yes?’ John presses lightly and Sherlock can’t say it; bites his lip, looks away, closer to embarrassed than caught. She tilts her head, follows him. ‘Sherlock?’

‘…Up here?’ Sherlock pats his knees in the most self-conscious way imaginable and Jon smiles, squeezes his fingers.

‘Of course, hold on.’ She stands; watches Sherlock watching her as she sheds her jacket, her shoes, all kept on from their aborted trip out to Covent Garden to chase up a lead and as Sherlock raises a hand, settles herself carefully into his lap, sitting on his thighs and carefully wrapping herself around him.

It should feel stupid – perhaps it _is_ stupid, but it’s hardly hurting anyone and there’s nobody here to see. Besides, it makes Sherlock feel better – allows him to wrap himself around her, resting his chin on her shoulder, hands on her back, breathing out. Jon knows it only goes so far, here; he can’t tell her, and she doesn’t dare guess (not for a single moment; now she’s seen him like this, she know better. Who could even venture a single iota of a thought, to what he’s been though, for them?) 

But she can do this, now: hold him, squeeze in with him, not talk if that’s what he needs. Sometimes it’s the other way around; he sits on her lap instead and buries his face in her neck and she runs her hands down his back and cups his hair and keeps him safe, his hiding-place for the duration.

(‘It makes me feel anchored,’ Sherlock had slurred one night, a bottle of red in his hand that Jon had squinted at over her own glass and thought that perhaps she really ought to take off him. ‘Anchored, you know?’ He made a pseudo-flattening gestures with his arm that didn’t really have much to do with what they were talking about but made a lot of sense at the time. _‘Anchored.’_

‘Of course,’ Jon said, leaning on his knee and then she had offered him her hand, because _that_ much at least seemed to make sense and they had stared at each other from behind post-it notes stuck to their heads, stilling, sobering).

‘Let’s stay here for a bit,’ she suggests finally, carefully. ‘Suspect can wait.’

Sherlock’s fingers interlock together, almost shyly behind her back and she cradles his head, holds him close, kisses his hair, noses into it. Sherlock shifts a little; glances up, something coming back over that face, something like startlement, before the full, inevitable resignation of, _Oh. Here, again._

‘I’m sorry,’ he murmurs (so ashamed. They’ve done this a few times now and he’s still so ashamed). Jon shakes her head, rubs her cheek against those curls.

‘For being human?’ she questions lightly; Sherlock falls silent. Jon smirks, tiredly so and they hold on to one another for a while, her hands hooked around his neck, feels rather like a student again, nicely drunk and sitting on Mike Stamford’s lap of an evening. (He’d been a little large even then; it had been nice. She’d been embarrassed the next day – but he had waved away her apologies, jovial and cheerful as ever).

If anyone can make you feel young again; as if time is the one chasing you and utterly failing, it’s Sherlock Holmes.

‘Don’t worry about them. I can be scarier,’ she teases softly, finally, more conversational to distract than anything; gets a faint smile out of Sherlock for that, a hum of perhaps-agreement. ‘You should’ve seen me during the year after you – or maybe not. I shouted at Harry, at Lestrade, I even went for Anderson…’ She clears her throat, guilty about that last one and Sherlock glances up, eyes widening.

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, did I never tell you?’ Jon blinks back at him. ‘One of the reasons he got suspended in the first place; he wouldn’t leave me alone. Came up to me in fucking John Lewis when I was trying to shop for my new place with Carl, and I lamped him.’

 _‘Joanna…’_ Sherlock breathes, purring the fullness of her name and tucks himself into her, a little closer.

‘No,’ John shakes her head; he misunderstands, ‘I mean, I _literally_ lamped him, Sherlock, I took a box _containing_ a lamp _off_ the shelf and _I threw it at him.’_ She enunciates every single one of the last five words, even as her hand settles on the back of his neck and Sherlock stares at her, their faces inches apart, before he roars with laughter, falling back against the chair.

‘So _that’s_ why you’re still banned,’ he throws his hands up, gleeful, from distressed to lackadaisical, a loud, happy groan escaping his lips as he stares up at her. ‘Oh, Jon. Joanna.’ He bounces his knee a bit, or attempts to, with her on top – she frowns at him as he straightens up, leans his chin against her shoulder, gazing up at her.

‘Wasn’t _really_ funny, I nearly broke his nose,’ she offers and Sherlock hums, even more appreciative, definitely cheered up a little bit, ‘fell short of it, I was tired. I was tired for a long time, after you left.’ She doesn’t mean it to sound accusing; more than anything, she’s tired of the anger that rattled around her, in the months both before and after Sherlock’s return. Not even her attempts to build a different kind of life – a life that very determinedly did not hold Sherlock as the central focus, borne out of some petty kind of spite and the need to prove she could survive without his presence, without cases, without 221b, without the world being explained to her by a man – ended up working.

Still. She doesn’t think anyone with a heart could look at him – at the scars on his back, at him, like this – and not reach out to help. Yes, he left her, lied to her, but he also came back to her, _utterly_ wretched, so there’s that.

‘There was a cell in Serbia,’ Sherlock’s words come out in a rush. ‘And…I was held there, for several days, until – until Mycroft came to get me. They argued a lot,’ he lets the words fall. ‘About…what they were going to do to me, what they wanted to do to me, should they wait, should they starve me to death – the list goes on.’

He says it so softly and so dispassionately and Jon nods, bites her lip hard, grips the back of his neck just a little harder just as the guilt grips her; the state he returned in verses the state of _her_ when she saw him; shouted at him; left him with a bleeding nose.

The state of them both, and both so desperately trying to hide it.

‘Okay. Okay, okay.’ She gathers him in, as though her protection is sufficient a couple of years too late. ‘It’s okay. I won’t let,’ she cups his face in his hands, _‘anything_ like that happen to you. Not again.’ And she hates the huge swoop of regret that burns her stomach every time they touch on this fact; the fact she thought he was dead for so long but worse, that she wasn’t allowed to go with him. That she was never given the choice.

 ** _Would_** _I have had the choice?_ she wanted to ask sometimes; to demand. _Was it because I was too slow; too sore; too old; too female? Would it have been exactly the same scenario if I’d been a bloke? Or would you have shoved off that protective duty cloak you sometimes wear, and let me follow you?_

_Would I have been any use, in the end?_

She doesn’t think she’ll ever quite forgive Sherlock, or Mycroft for that – for making her ask any of these questions at all – but life goes on, and besides, Sherlock’s done his time. Dear God, he’s more than done his time.

‘You survived,’ she praises. ‘You did what you had to do – you survived, and you came back. And I can keep an eye on you now.’ She means it to sound mischievous, and reassuring, but it just seems like such a meagre promise; a hand casually swinging the stable door shut long, long, long after the haughty Arabian Stallion has shed both reins and seat and hurtled off into the wild, taking a thousand different disguises. It makes her, frankly, feel rather cross still, but it’s the best she can do. He came back to her in the end, after all.

(Nobody has ever done anything like that, just for Joanna Watson).

‘I know,’ Sherlock’s voice is like a falling feather, settling against her. ‘You do it well, Watson.’

Jon chuffs without a trace of humour. ‘Don’t think I do, but thanks.’ She smiles, remembering a long-ago when she would scream herself awake, fearing she’d be back in the bedsit, and taking a moment to recall the night-time, insomniac steps of Sherlock down below. Sometimes, he’d play his violin while she drank 2am tea; surprise her with his knowledge of an instrumental Bohemian Rhapsody. It had been nice; she thinks of them as the ‘pre-2012’ days now. After Sherlock had died – gone away – she had sat staring at the television for months, watched the Olympics and the Queen’s Jubilee with hardly a scrap of national pride in her, hating what felt like half the country for pushing Sherlock Holmes to his death.

‘And you’re safe,’ she murmurs, ‘You’re safe, okay? It’s alright if you don’t feel it right now, but we’ll make it safe.’

She kisses his forehead, over and over, light pecks, pushing her hands through his hair in as much to comfort as it is a silent ‘fuck off’ to the world outside – to the people who talk and make bets, to the married couple next door, to the people who hurt Sherlock all over the world while she remained, believing him to be resting right here beneath London when in fact he was walking a different continent.

Sherlock raises his head to the attention, eyes closing, visibly relaxing, bumping his nose against her cheek, something in the movement hopeful; Jon carefully cradles his neck, presses another, longer kiss to his forehead and just stays put. She’s used to people looking at her like she’s Sherlock’s faithful PA/wife/bed-partner but she also has a gun, and a traumatised best friend who jumped off the face of the earth (or at least, a really tall building) just to stop Moriarty’s empire and save her life, so let people think whatever the hell they want.

They sit like that for a time – Jon with her knees over Sherlock’s lap, which yeah, okay, feels a bit… like the way of the classical girlfriend and not even she and Marcus did it quite like _this_ when he was alive, not really, but perhaps that’s why it works: it’s so unusual, it’s _them._ Sherlock’s hands are politely hooked over her legs as they talk, quietly, his gaze less glazed with something from the past and more focused, more central, more here, with her.

They share the breath of 221b, carve out a space for themselves in Sherlock’s chair and Sherlock opens up a little more; pulls back the black-out blinds that seemed to fall over those two years and shares a little more, another tale, another story – New Delhi, and a tale of an ice-cream. Jon listens, suspects this is more distraction than confidence – one of the ‘nicer days,’ the ‘better cases’; laughs a little, here and there; holds his hand, strokes his hair, rests her cheek on the chair-back. She’ll get the whole story out of him, eventually.

Eventually, there’s a polite knock on the door, followed by Mrs Hudson’s ‘yoohoo’ and Lestrade’s head, craning around it.

‘Hi, guys,’ he greets, slipping in and nodding to Mrs Hudson as she trills a goodbye and toddles away; he’s watching the pair of them closely, curled up together on the chair as they are; Sherlock tilts his head back to meet his gaze, quietly defiant, as Jon deftly unwraps herself from him, nearly sends the chair over in the process. Lestrade snickers – well, maybe _snickers_ is unkind, but he definitely smirks – and Jon stands to meet him, eye for eye, expectant, one hand curling loosely into a fist.

‘All good, Greg?’ she asks, a silent command to ignore her rumpled clothing and stiff posture from so long in one place.

‘All good, yeah,’ he meets it in turn, visibly scales himself back with nothing more than an apologetic glance. ‘Seems your suspect was caught trying to flee the country an hour ago. You two didn’t even have to put the frighteners on him.’ He folds his arms and Jon feels a fleeting tinge of regret. She didn’t even get to use her gun. ‘Pretty impressive, even by your standards.’

‘I assume he was attempting to dispose of his corrupted manager’s remains and failed dismally?’ Sherlock has resumed his cross-legged, hand supporting head position in the manner of the faultless; Jon throws a glance and a smile his way at the lofty tone.

‘You assume correct,’ Lestrade grins. ‘Using an axe, of all things,’ he grimaces and Jon winces. Sherlock shifts off his chair; uncrosses his legs and takes the folder Lestrade is holding out – snatches, more like – and peruses it briefly, Jon glancing over his shoulder. Seeing her looking, he offers it to her to read, eyebrows raised in silent query and she takes it with a huff and a roll of the eyes. Rude bastard often used to ignore her – and everybody else – when he was closely inspecting a folder, until she Had Words.

‘His manager had been putting him down for a long time,’ Lestrade is busy reporting into their silence, ‘bullying, harassment, unfair treatment at work. Add in the insurance scam and the thing with the twins, and, well…’

Jon smirks at the floor; tries desperately and very, very badly to hide it. (Sometimes, just sometimes, it’s twins. _Sometimes)._

‘Well,’ she snaps the folder shut; not quite as deftly as Sherlock usually manages to close things up and she nearly fumbles and drops it, but hands it back to Lestrade anyway. ‘Nice one, Greg. Anything further?’

‘Nah, s’all sorted. Might need a statement, but…’ He shrugs. ‘That can wait.’ He shoves his hands in his pockets, eyes flitting between them and Jon sees him out, Sherlock watching her chatting to him on the way down the stairs.

She’s texting Harry later while he makes tea and once he leaves the pot to brew, steps into her peripheral, like a child gently pulling on her sleeve. Deciding it’s probably not a good idea to swear at your brother over text anyway, even if he has gone off on yet another bender, Jon puts the phone aside and lets herself be tugged in for a hug, shyly so, locking her arms securely around him.

He’s getting good at this, this affection thing; perhaps they both are. Neither of them even thought it was something they needed, not particularly, not when one relied on shooting in the desert and the other on shooting up drugs, but this is probably healthier. She raises her head, presses her nose against his neck and his smile becomes a little wider as he relaxes in her arms.

 _(‘Don’t_ say anything, Greg,’ she had ordered before at the bottom of the stairs while seeing him out, voice tilted in firmness, leaning against the wall as she folded her arms, more a stance than anything; raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t care what kind of betting pool they’ve got going on at the Yard, he doesn’t need it.’

He had stopped, shuffled; blinked slowly. ‘Of course. Of course,’ he said, with a nod, looking just a little shamefaced and she had smiled warmly, unfolded herself; clapped his shoulder. He had smiled back, eyes crinkling at the corner; taken her offered handshake and kissed the back of her palm, briefly. It was more friendly than anything; brother-like, maybe, but it didn’t stop the fact that, in another lifetime – one where he wasn’t so desperately and deservedly in love with patient, lovely Molly and she wasn’t…all of _this,_ with Sherlock, well. Maybe. _Maybe)._

‘Shall we go out?’ Sherlock asks then; apropos of nothing; Jon glances up. ‘Haven’t been to Angelo’s in a while.’

Jon smirks somewhere past his shoulder. ‘If you like. Does he owe you a meal at this point, or…?’ She grins as Sherlock makes an exaggerated show of rolling his eyes. ‘Fine. Then I’m having the pizza.’ She’ll order mushrooms, which he’ll inevitably pick off when he nicks a slice or three, but as long as there’s a good bottle of chianti to go with it, she’s not really complaining. _‘And_ the honeycomb cheesecake,’ she adds; inspired, she leans up on tiptoe to cradle his face and press a kiss against his cheek, firm and faithful, going nowhere.

He turns his head to look at her as she drops back down and she looks at him – tips herself up again to kiss the very corner of his mouth, envelopes him in another hug, longer this time, quiet. He buries his face in her shoulder and she says nothing, rubs his shoulder, the nape of his neck, the gap between his shoulder-blades, with her thumb, half-mumbles assurances he’s not sure either of them are supposed to hear.

(He’s done his time. He’s _more_ than done his time).

He walks arm-in-arm with her as they step out onto the warming streets of London – the year is turning, gently propelling them towards the spring, towards shorter nights, and longer days. Jon keeps in step with him, laughs with him as they wander away down the street – see Josh leaving Mrs Turner’s house, throwing his jacket on over his sweats but before turning and leaning through the open doorway of his own house to say something to his husband, kissing him goodbye – and go to get dinner.

*


End file.
